


Bake With Me

by SoaringBallad



Category: TsukiPro the Animation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25293193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoaringBallad/pseuds/SoaringBallad
Summary: Mitsuru is browsing the web and finds a cake recipe. Much to his pleasure, Makoto helps him make it.
Kudos: 5





	Bake With Me

It was a normal day in ZIX’s shared room. Both Makoto and Mitsuru had the day off, so they were relaxing together. Mitsuru was lying across the couch with his feet in Makoto’s lap scrolling through his phone and Makoto was watching a program on TV. As Mitsuru was browsing, he saw a picture of a delicious looking dessert.

“It looks so good!” Mitsuru exclaimed, practically drooling at the chocolatey delight on his phone.

“What is it?” Makoto asked. He reached out for Mitsuru’s phone and looked at the chocolate cake. “It doesn’t look that hard to make,” he said with a shrug handing it back.

“Could we really make it?” Mitsuru asked. He scrolled down the blog to the instructions. There were a lot.

“Yeah, no big deal,” Makoto said. He nudged Mitsuru’s legs off of his lap. “We just have to make sure we have everything we need.” He went into the kitchenette and started pulling out typical cake ingredients.

“Do we have everything?” Mitsuru asked anxiously.

“Probably. As long as it doesn’t have any weird ingredients,” Makoto said.

“Um,” Mitsuru scrolled through the ingredients looking for anything he didn’t recognize. “I think we are okay.”

“Then it should be no problem to make,” Makoto said, grabbing a bowl. “Are you going to come in here and help or not?”

“Yes, yes,” Mitsuru said. He set his phone with the recipe down on the counter. “So, what do we do first?”

“You are the one who read through everything, you tell me,” Makoto said.

“I didn’t read _any_ of the instructions, and you were acting like you knew exactly what to do, so...” Mitsuru trailed off, now busy with looking through the instructions.

“What do we put the oven on?” Makoto asked.

“Um… I think I saw that,” Mitsuru scrolled up and down several times.

“It should be in the first step,” Makoto said, a bit impatiently.

“Oh! Here! It’s 350°,” Mitsuru said. Makoto started to set the oven, but stopped.

“That’s way too hot. Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah, it says so in the first step,” Mitsuru said. He then looked over it again. It was 350℉, which it said was 177℃. “No, it’s actually 177°,” Mitsuru amended.

“This is an American recipe then,” Makoto said with a sigh. That meant they would be making several conversions. At least there shouldn’t be any weird ingredients, as Mitsuru already looked through the list.

“I guess so,” Mitsuru didn’t really think it was that big of a deal. The recipe had all the ingredients listed in American measurements and in measurements he recognized, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

“What kind of pans are we using?” Makoto asked, Mitsuru looked at the recipe. It said two 9-inch round cake pans. Unfortunately, this didn’t come with a conversion.

“Round ones,” Mitsuru said. They probably only had one size anyway.

“20- or 23-centimeter?” Makoto asked.

“The 20-centimeter,” Mitsuru said without hesitating. He didn’t want Makoto to know that it didn’t say, they may not make cake then! Besides, if the cake pan was smaller, then that meant each serving would have more cake, because the cakes would be thicker, right?

“I’ll grease this then,” Makoto said, grabbing butter out of the refrigerator.

“I’ll start putting the ingredients in the bowl,” Mitsuru said. He had never really baked before, so he didn’t know how he was supposed to measure the ingredients. They all gave weights, so did that mean he had to use a scale? He could grab the one they kept in the bathroom, but he didn’t know if it would measure something so light. It also seemed too tedious and time consuming, so he decided to go with the other measurements.

Apparently one-and-three-fourths cups of flour was 220g, who knew? Mitsuru grabbed a drinking cup and started to put it into the flour bag when he noticed that Makoto had gotten out two kinds of flour. Seeing as there was a cake flour, he used that. Filling the cup was easy and he dumped one full cup and one cup three-fourths full into the bowl.

“What are you doing?” Makoto asked, glancing over from where he was greasing the pans. He set the second one down, only halfway greased and moved over to where Mitsuru was filling the bowl with flour.

“Putting in the flour?” Mitsuru said in a way that made it sound more like a question.

“How are you measuring it?” Makoto asked. Mitsuru looked away. Makoto could be such a pain sometimes. He always had to do everything correctly. Makoto didn’t seem to be waiting on an answer, likely he knew he wouldn’t get one he liked. He pulled out a scale from one of the cabinets and put a bowl on top. After taring the scale, he dumped the flour Mitsuru had measured out over into the new bowl.

“See, it’s fine,” Mitsuru said.

“How many grams are we supposed to have?” Makoto asked, reaching for the recipe. Mitsuru pulled it out of his reach.

“278 grams, just like I measured out,” Mitsuru said.

“If you would have said 280 grams, it would have been much more believable,” Makoto said.

“Fine, fine, it was 280 grams,” Mitsuru stuck his tongue out at Makoto when he turned his back. He always had to be right, didn’t he? It’s not like it would make that big of a difference anyway. Just to be safe though, maybe they should add a little bit extra of all of the ingredients.

Since the dry ingredients all went into a bowl together at the start, Makoto had Mitsuru read off the amounts of each as he measured and put them in. Mitsuru made sure to tell him to put in more than it called for for each of the components. Luckily for him, Makoto didn’t seem to notice.

“Okay, now we have to mix together the oil, eggs, and vanilla,” Mitsuru said. It said that the eggs should be at room-temperature, but they kept theirs in the fridge. Did it matter? He hoped not. Makoto set to the task of mixing these ingredients together.

“What’s next?” Makoto asked, finished getting them as incorporated as he could. In his opinion, room-temperature eggs would have worked better, as they would have blended together easier.

“Um,” Mitsuru was frantically trying to search the web to find out what ‘buttermilk’ was. Did you just mix butter and milk? “We have to add,” Mitsuru paused. He had just found a recipe for ‘buttermilk’. Apparently all you had to do was add vinegar? “300 milliliters of milk and two tablespoons of vinegar.”

“Vinegar?” Makoto asked.

“Yes,” Mitsuru said. Makoto was put off by the idea of adding vinegar to a cake, but since that’s what the recipe they were using said to do, that is what he would do. Deviating from a recipe while baking was never a good idea. It could cause whatever you were trying to make to end up poorly, even from just a few simple changes.

“Now we add that to the flour mixture and then put in 280 milliliters of hot coffee,” Mitsuru said.

“Hot coffee? Why didn’t you tell me sooner. We’re going to have to wait for that to brew,” Makoto complained.

“I thought you would take too long and it would get cold,” Mitsuru lied. It was starting to look like reading through the whole recipe before starting would have been a good idea. Makoto set to brewing the coffee, and the two waited in silence for it to finish.

“This better be a damn good cake,” Makoto said.

“It’ll turn out delicious,” Mitsuru assured. Even if the cake didn’t come out perfectly, they could always cover it up with lots of frosting, and it would be tasty. Maybe they could make extra frosting, just in case?

After the coffee finished brewing, Makoto added it to the rest of the ingredients. The batter became very thin, and easily pourable. Dividing it between the two pans was an easy task, and Makoto gave himself a mental pat on the back for completing the cake without getting frustrated and throwing a hissy fit. Mitsuru was a good partner, but he never wanted to make a cake like this with him again.

“Now we bake it for… 23-26 minutes,” Mitsuru said. After all of that hard work, he was ready for a break! “I can’t wait until we can eat it.”

“Me neither,” Makoto said. They headed back into their sitting area and sat down on the couch. Makoto turned to Mitsuru. “I think that maybe I should look through the recipe. I want to know why they added vinegar to a cake.”

“Um,” Mitsuru had to think up an excuse quickly. Makoto would see how much of the recipe he changed if he didn’t. “I think you should wait until you taste it. I bet you’ll be able to figure it out just from that.” Mitsuru prayed that Makoto’s pride would win out, and that he would feel like he had to figure it out on his own.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Makoto said, dropping the subject. Mitsuru breathed out a sigh of relief. “I’ll go ahead and take a look at the frosting recipe then.”

“Why do you need to?” Mitsuru asked. He had to play it cool without seeming suspicious.

“To see what we need? Why are you asking? Are you hiding something from me?” Makoto was clearly getting suspicious.

“No, no! I can get everything out if you want. Maybe we could go ahead and make it now, that way all we have to do is assemble the cake once it’s done,” Mitsuru thought his plan was pretty genius.

“The cakes will have to cool when they get out of the oven. That could take around an hour,” Makoto said.

“An hour!” Mitsuru exclaimed. “I thought we were going to be able to eat it once it’s done. Now you’re telling me I have to wait another _two_ hours for cake!?”

“You’re the one who said you wanted cake. If we frost it any sooner we risk the chance of melting the icing. Do you want a cake with melted icing?” Makoto asked. Mitsuru shook his head ‘no’, though part of him wanted to say ‘yes’. “Then we’ll wait until the cakes are out of the oven to make the frosting. After that, we wait for them to cool completely, and then frost.”

Mitsuru turned away from Makoto sulking, so Makoto decided not to press him too much for the frosting recipe. He instead turned the TV back on. They were going to have a long wait until they could have cake, so he figured he should try to find a movie to keep them both preoccupied in the meantime. Luckily he found something easily, and before they both knew it, the oven was beeping.

Mitsuru reacted quicker and sprang up from the couch in an instant. He dashed into the kitchen and peered into the oven. The cakes had risen significantly and were taller than the top of the pan. Thankfully, nothing had overflowed though. Mitsuru grabbed a hot pad and took the cakes out of the oven.

“Those are tall cakes,” Makoto said, eyeing them suspiciously. He had suspected something was up earlier, but now he knew for sure. “Did you tell me the recipe exactly?”

“Of course I did!” Mitsuru said. “It’s just supposed to make a lot of cake. It even says in the directions that the cake will be taller than normal.”

“Does it now?” Mitsuru was a good liar, but Makoto had been his partner long enough to tell when he was not being completely honest.

“Let’s make the frosting!” Mitsuru changed the subject. “We need butter, sugar, cocoa powder, cream, and vanilla.”

“How much butter? I got out two sticks earlier to soften,” Makoto said.

“Um…” Mitsuru looked at the recipe. It called for two-and-a-half sticks of butter, but they were going to make extra, so… “You need to get out two more sticks.”

“It uses four sticks of butter? That can’t be right,” Makoto couldn’t believe how indulgent this recipe was. How much frosting was this cake supposed to have?

“You want to make it right, don’t you?” Mitsuru asked. “We need four sticks of butter.” Makoto sighed, and got out two more sticks of butter.

“We’re going to have to wait for it to soften,” Makoto said.

“How long does that take?” Mitsuru didn’t want to wait long.

“A half-an-hour to an hour,” Makoto replied.

“Can we soften it faster?” Mitsuru asked.

“We don’t want it to melt since we are making buttercream,” Makoto said. Mitsuru looked disappointed. “We can try to soften it in the microwave though.”

“Let’s do that!” Mitsuru picked up the unsoftened butter and stuck it in the microwave. Before he could press the button to start it, Makoto stopped him.

“We should unwrap it first, and we don’t want to microwave it at full power, that will melt it,” Makoto explained. He pulled the butter out, unwrapped it, and put it on a plate. He put the microwave at a lower power and started it.

“I’ll get the mixer out!” Mitsuru said. He got into one of the cabinets and pulled out their mixer. He plugged it in and put on the paddle attachment.

“Butter’s soft,” Makoto said. He added all four sticks to the bowl Mitsuru had gotten out and turned on the mixer. “I’m going to guess we let this beat until it gets fluffy, right?”

“Um, let me check,” Mitsuru grabbed his phone. “Yep, two minutes. After that, we add everything else in.”

“Got it,” Makoto said. He started measuring out the rest of the ingredients as Mitsuru directed. Once the butter was fluffy, they were all added in and the frosting was finished.

“Are the cakes cool?” Mitsuru asked hopefully. Makoto knew they weren’t but put his hand over one to check so Mitsuru wouldn’t complain.

“Not yet. Let’s go finish the movie, and then they should be,” Makoto said, turning the cakes out onto a cooling rack. Makoto then pulled Mitsuru out of the kitchen and back to the couch. The movie they were watching had forty minutes left, which would be the perfect length of time for the cake to cool completely.

The instant the movie credits started, Mitsuru turned to Makoto. “Can we frost the cake now?” he asked. Makoto wondered if he even paid attention to the movie or if he was just eagerly awaiting cake the whole time.

“Yes, we can.” The two of them headed back to the kitchen. Makoto put one layer of the cake onto a flat serving plate. “We could probably cut this in half and make a four layer cake. I think we have plenty of frosting.” Makoto eyed the frosting bowl. It had way too much frosting for one cake.

“Okay!” Mitsuru grabbed a large knife from the knife block and handed it to Makoto. Makoto carefully sliced the layer in half and placed the top part back onto the cooling rack.

“Grab a spatula and an offset spatula from the drawer,” Makoto said. Mitsuru grabbed both spatulas. Using the regular spatula, Mitsuru carefully scooped a dollop of frosting onto the cake. Makoto smoothed it out using the offset spatula. He made sure to make it nice and even, something that would prevent the cake from becoming lopsided.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Mitsuru said, urging him to hurry.

“It doesn’t, but it has to be close,” Makoto said. He finally deemed it a satisfactory smoothness and gently placed the next layer on. They repeated the same process as before until the cake was assembled. Makoto had put a generous layer of frosting between each layer, and he was pretty sure that he had never seen a cake this tall before.

“It tastes so good,” Mitsuru said, he was currently eating the leftover frosting out of the bowl. Makoto pulled it away.

“Do you want to fill up on frosting, or do you want to have a piece of cake?” Makoto asked. Mitsuru pouted, but didn’t reach for the bowl again. Makoto set it down on the counter. It still had at least two cups of frosting in it, and Makoto wasn’t sure whether he should put it in a container to save it or throw it out. He figured he would decide after they ate. Mitsuru looked too impatient to wait much longer.

Makoto grabbed two plates and the knife from earlier. He cut them each a thin slice and carried the plates to the table.

“This is the most delicious looking cake I have ever seen,” Mitsuru said. It was so tall and had so much frosting on it. The alterations to the recipe turned out well.

“It does look pretty good,” Makoto said. It looked like it had way too much sugar though. They each had a bite of cake.

“It’s so yummy!” Mitsuru said.

“It’s very moist,” Makoto said. He wondered if the vinegar had something to do with that. He would have to check the recipe later to see if he was right.

“I would totally make this again tomorrow. It was worth the wait,” Mitsuru said.

“Fortunately for you, you won’t have to. We have so much, it would probably last at least a week,” Makoto said. The cake probably wouldn’t keep that long, so they were going to have to foist some of it onto their co-workers.

“It turned out so perfectly! Thanks for making it with me, Makoto,” Mitsuru said. Makoto did most of the work making the cake, so Mitsuru wanted him to know how happy he was that he did that for him.

“No big deal,” Makoto said, looking away slightly embarrassed. “I wanted to try making it too.” Usually Mitsuru would tease Makoto more when he was feeling shy like this, but he decided to give him a break and enjoy the tasty cake. When they finished eating, Mitsuru brought both of the plates to the sink.

There were lots of dishes piled up from baking the cake. Since Makoto did most of the work making it, Mitsuru figured he could at least do dishes. “I’m going to wash the dishes,” Mitsuru told Makoto.

“I can help you with them,” Makoto offered.

“No, it’s okay. You worked hard on the cake,” Mitsuru said.

“Okay then,” Makoto said. As Mitsuru began filling up the sink, Makoto grabbed Mitsuru’s phone to look at the recipe. Not only did he want to find out why they put in vinegar, but he wanted to check to make sure they made it right.

He looked through the ingredients briefly and noticed several things right away. The most glaring difference in the recipe though was the amount of frosting. Mitsuru had them make almost double the amount of frosting than what the recipe called for. No wonder they had so much.

The next thing he noticed was there was no vinegar in the recipe. Why Mitsuru had them add that, he didn’t know. Lastly, all of the measurements listed were different from the ones Mitsuru had told him.

“Mitsuru,” Makoto said.

“Yeah?” Mitsuru turned around and saw Makoto with his phone.

“Did you deviate from the recipe?” Makoto asked. Mitsuru knew he had two options here. One way to lie, which would be obvious to Makoto since he already knew, or to admit the truth.

“Maybe a little?” Mitsuru tried. Makoto got up and walked over to the sink. Mitsuru gulped. Makoto was mad.

“Maybe a little? Maybe a lot!” Makoto said. “Why the hell did you double the frosting? And why did we put vinegar in the cake? You shouldn’t deviate from the recipe when baking.” Mitsuru didn’t really have a good answer for Makoto.

“It still turned out good,” Mitsuru countered. Makoto sighed.

“Yeah, I guess it did this time, but it could have gone horribly wrong. Next time just make it how it says. That’s the best way to do it,” Makoto said. Even though he got scolded, Mitsuru was glad that the cake turned out good and Makoto liked it too. “Now what are we going to do with all of this extra frosting?” Makoto asked.

“I know! We could make another cake?” Mitsuru suggested. The glare Makoto sent him answered that.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so happy we're getting more ZIX content soon! :D  
> I can't wait!


End file.
